


little black spots that your memory's laced with

by staringatafterimages



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Dark Will Graham, M/M, Manipulation, Murder Husbands, Roleswap, Sickfic, Will Finds Out, it's an AU but idk what kind, kind of?, or like medium roast, sickfic but evil, slowburn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:56:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26304520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staringatafterimages/pseuds/staringatafterimages
Summary: Will Graham's been blacking out and anonymously confessing to crimes.Hannibal Lecter does not appreciate plagiarism.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 11
Kudos: 107





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i'll probably update this one. maybe there will be smut later. you have been warned.   
> title is from never scared by modern chemistry

A fever of 105 was the least of Will Graham’s problems. 

Just above it on the list was that he was being forced to take sick leave for an innocuous Man Flu, leaving him to his own devices until he got better. His usual procedure--bed of towels, soup, sweat it out--had proven ineffective. The inactivity ate away at his stability, waves lapping at limestone, eroding from underneath him. 

Higher up on the Problem Chart sat the progressively worsening symptoms, including losses of time so severe he wasn’t quite sure what day it was, and at this point couldn’t find his phone to call the hospital if he wanted to. 

Of highest priority were his nightmares (hallucinations?) that swam with blood and antlers, organs laid out on gilded plates, black water up to his nose. He awoke every time feeling like he needed to scrub his hands, dig beneath his fingernails. Remove evidence. 

Will swallowed his last three aspirins and accepted that this might not be influenza, if only to distract himself from wondering what he felt so guilty of. He slowly became aware that the dogs were barking, and maybe there had been a knock at the door, indistinguishable from the pounding in his head. He staggered to his feet, probably not wearing pants, maybe in a t-shirt. He swung open the door, dogs rushing around him like a current. 

“You’re not Alana,” he croaked to the dapper stranger. What a suit. 

The man smiled. “No. My name is Hannibal Lecter. May I come in?” 

“Probably not,” Will responded, watching Buster run in circles around the man’s ankles. Dragging his eyes back up to the man’s face took all his strength, and almost made him topple backward. “What do you want?” 

The dogs usually jumped up on people. As it was, they hardly barked at him now that the door was open. Maybe this wasn’t real. 

“You look quite ill,” the man said in lieu of an answer. “Shall I drive you to the hospital?” 

“D’you wanna pay for my bills, too?” It was cold out, and this man wasn’t leaving anytime soon. He lurched back inside and let the stranger follow, speculating how well he could shoot a gun in his state. 

“Very well. To answer your question, Mr. Graham, I’m here on both professional and personal business. Firstly, the FBI is starting to take interest in you.”

Will’s face twisted in confusion as he slumped down in his chair. “What does the FBI want with an indisposed professor?” 

“Initially, Jack Crawford wanted your help consulting on a case, until he discovered you were ill.” Lecter took a few measured steps towards him, feigning interest in his lures, books, sparse home decor. Will hadn’t been in the force for a few years, could hardly focus his blurry eyes, but knew the stalk of a predator when he saw one. His gun wasn’t too far away. “However, after asking for my help in your stead I’ve chosen to follow a lead he has overlooked.” He was behind Will now. Leaning close to his ear. Was he smelling him? “You’ve written some interesting letters, Mr. Graham.” 

Letters?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi

Hannibal spread them out for Will to see. Five letters in total, hastily scribbled with no indication of a sender. Addressed to Jack Crawford of the FBI. 

“A person’s handwriting can be as unique and personal as a fingerprint. Graphology, the study of handwriting, proposes that our very personalities bleed into the ink, dictating the shape and size of the words we scrawl.” He paused. “I suspect you can recognize yourself in these letters.” 

Will stared in disbelief, the flowery monologue barely registering in his already addled mind. The image of his own familiar calligraphy--small, boxy consonants and low dotted i’s-- confessing to gruesome and horrific murders was enough to steal the air from his lungs. He tried to steady his breathing, but found he was closer and closer to hyperventilating the longer he looked. Words like  _ blood, gutted _ ,  _ mutilation, slaughter _ , all in his own hand, danced on the pages. 

“I have no memory of writing these. Are you--” his words caught. He swallowed hard and tried again. “Are you here to arrest me?” 

“No.” 

Will waited, but nothing followed. “Shouldn’t you?” 

Hannibal gathered up the letters and put them back into a manila envelope. He knelt down in front of the chair, eye level to Will. “I can help you, Will. If you ask me to. But only if you ask me to.” 

Then Will passed out. 

  
  


When he awoke, he was tucked into his bed, his head propped up by a few pillows. Hannibal was gently dabbing his forehead with a cool cloth. 

“Why are you still in my house,” he said groggily. 

Hannibal set down the cloth and picked up a bowl and spoon. “You are lucky I used to be a doctor. You are severely ill, Mr. Graham. Open, please.” 

He opened his mouth to the spoon before he could stop himself. 

“Silkie chicken in a broth,” Hannibal explained. “A black-boned bird, prized in China for its medicinal value since--” 

“You come into my house to accuse me of murder, and then you spoon-feed me chicken soup?” 

Hannibal frowned, his brown eyes darkening to a maroon. “I could have delivered your fevered, unconscious body to Jack Crawford’s desk, if you prefer.” 

Will gave one quick jerk of his head. “No, thank you.” 

The man fed him another spoonful and stood up. Will noticed he had removed his jacket, eyes catching on the line of his shoulders through his shirt. He then pretended he didn’t see it, and wondered if he was being held hostage. 

“Do you remember committing these crimes, Will? Or did the guilt eat you from the inside out, causing you to confess unconsciously?”

Will sat up and ran his hands over his face. “I don’t remember anything. I’ve been having blackouts from the fever, so I suppose I could have--” he couldn’t finish the sentence. “But, no. No. I didn’t kill those people.”

Hannibal rested a cool hand against Will’s burning forehead and he tried not to lean in to the touch. “Some part of you seems to think you did. Lucky for you, I’m trained in psychology as well as medicine. If you have buried the memories, I can help you recover them. If we find nothing, we can discover what drove you to write these letters in the first place, if only to build you a better case in court, should it come to that.” 

If Hannibal intended to bring relief, he was doing a shit job. Will’s chest tightened as he felt doom settle over him, dark fog rolling in off a troubled shore. “And what are you getting in return?”

The man never truly smiled, never bared his teeth. The smiles he gave, such as this one, were almost undetectable, tiny little cracks in the mask he wore. Will supposed he allowed the expression to come through just to seem more human. Just to put his counterparts at ease. Whatever was behind that mask, whatever designs drove his actions, it thought itself far above the mortal plane. 

The slight upward quirk in his mouth seemed to say  _ I’ll never tell. _


	3. Chapter 3

Dr. Lecter set up a chair across from Will’s bed, mimicking a therapist and his patient. Will thought to insist for his credentials (or for him to get the hell out of his house) but he was starting to suspect he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. The blackmail was not obvious, but the threat lurked beneath the surface of their conversations like a shark in murky water. He felt the presence of his gun as a phantom limb, tucked away in a drawer next to his bed. 

“Shall we start at the beginning? Why don’t you tell me about yourself.” Hannibal crossed his legs, immaculately ironed pants barely creasing, leaning forward to indicate interest. 

“Um,” Will shifted uncomfortably. “I’m a professor at the FBI Academy. I teach forensics.” 

“Do you enjoy it?” 

He made a face. “It’s money, it’s something I’m decent at. I feel like I’m making some sort of difference in the world.” 

“Teaching the youth how to pick up where you left off. You used to be a police officer, correct?”

“I quit. Didn’t like, uh, pulling the trigger.” 

Hannibal let the answer sit, let the words dissipate into the air. Then, he said, “Or did you like it too much?” 

Will did not appreciate the insinuation. He thought about telling him to fuck off. He thought about putting a bullet between his eyes. He thought about the dead rhythm of lecturing to a class of glassy eyed grad students, the easy monotony of grading papers. The safe, sleepy boredom. It fed his desire to feel like his life was meaningful and kept his imagination watered down. As opposed to police work, which only held flashes of nauseous memory; washing off blood in the shower, sleepless motel nights, the weight of bulletproof vests and guns and responsibility. 

“The murders in those letters were not carried out with a gun,” Will stated flatly. 

Hannibal blinked. “No. They’re much more--” 

“Intimate,” Will finished. 

They held each other’s gaze for too long. Will made a mental note not to use that word again, lest he continue to build sexual tension with his interrogator. Captor? 

Therapist? 

“Is it possible that you’ve picked up some urges from working in the field, and studying forensics? Urges that, after being repressed for so long, have expressed themselves unconsciously, perhaps while you were in a dissociated state?” 

Will pinched the bridge of his nose. “So, what, I gave myself DID?” 

When he made blunt or tactless comments, Hannibal’s mouth tightened in a way that was almost comical. Will devoted himself to making it happen as often as possible. 

“Or something like it. You have experience in neurodivergence, yes?” 

A clear riposte. Will snorted. “‘Neurodivergence’ being the only term professionals can agree on.” 

Hannibal waited. 

“It’s an--” he paused, gathering his thoughts, enunciating each syllable. “Empathy disorder.” 

“You can assume the killer’s point of view,” Hannibal inferred. “You can understand their drives, their fears, their passions. It’s what made investigative work so easy for you. And so destructive.” The doctor’s face softened, brightened, as he spoke. His expression remained resolutely still, but his eyes glowed of something like reverence. 

It was disquieting. He was exactly right. The pointed evaluation made Will feel exposed, and he hugged his sweater tighter around him. “Yes.” 

“A terrible and wonderful talent to possess, certainly. I see why Uncle Jack was so interested in your opinion on the case.” 

Will was restless in his gaze. An ant under a microscope. 

“You need not feel shame for the way your mind works. Too often do we wander through our lives, misunderstood and alone. To understand, to empathize, is perhaps the greatest kindness we can offer our fellow man.” 

“Do serial killers deserve that kindness?” 

Another micro-smile. “They are, perhaps, the ones that seek it most of all.”


	4. Chapter 4

The visits became regular. Once or twice a week, Dr. Lecter arrived at Will’s home in some bizarre and perfectly creased suit and talked to him about murder. He always brought food. Just soups, at first, but as Will’s health returned he began bringing in more extravagant dishes. Scrambled eggs and sausage, one early morning. Then foie gras. Heart tartare. Stranger than the dishes was the fact that Will began to look forward to seeing him, to the long conversations with their dark undertones, clever turns of phrases, flat descriptions of the terrible. He could speak like this with no one else. Previously, his only outlet for his morbid imagination was talking out loud to a silent audience. Now someone spoke back. Built upon his reflections, returned them in ways he didn’t expect. Challenged him. Threatened him, even, but the excitement was almost worth it. He had been so bored, he realized. 

Hannibal seemed to enjoy his company, despite the ever present fact that he thought Will might be a murderer. And, despite his insistence that rudeness had no place in society, he appeared to find Will’s lack of social graces humorous at times. They built a strange relationship, one that could only stand when all other motivations were ignored and all other influences were darkened out of the vignette. Beyond the murder investigations, the blackmail, the gnawing sense that Will was being backed into a wall, they were two men interacting in ways that they couldn’t with anyone else. 

“So, Will,” he said one day, perched in his chair with a notebook in hand. “Either you wrote about these murders because you were guilty of them, or because you empathize so much with the killer that, in those moments, you became him. Who is this killer, then? Who do you become when you lose time?” 

Once again, Will didn’t like how the question was worded, but he conceded to the point. “I doubt he’s of my background. The dismemberment, removals of organs, they’re all precise. The killer has surgical know-how. And, uh, he likes theater, he likes to put on a show. He views his killings as pest control, elevated to art.”

“Is he still killing? Will he kill again?” 

Will sighed. “God, I hope not.” 

The men shared a laugh. It was a nice moment, one that Hannibal quickly ruined. “If you were a killer, would you kill in this way? If you could be rid of all the enemies in your path, would you leave them where they lie, or change them somehow?” 

Will frowned, leaning forward, emphasizing his words. “I’m not a killer, Dr. Lecter.” 

Hannibal remained undeterred. “Have you not seen enough murders to form an opinion? Have you never daydreamed about shutting up an annoying coworker for good?” 

Will pursed his lips. “I think you’ve worn out your welcome.” 

The doctor smiled placatingly and gathered his things. “I suspect you are returning to work soon. I would prepare yourself for a visit from Jack Crawford.” 

He shot Hannibal a glance. “A friendly one, I hope?” 

The other man blinked slowly, catlike. “Whether or not he comes calling, it will not be because of me.” 

Will, disgruntled but appeased, sat back in his chair and watched him go.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm writing a lot of these in one sitting and it is so very hard not to post them all at once

Returning to work was surprisingly pleasant. 

He found renewed passion for his lectures, dissecting the mindsets of killers and encouraging his students to really look through the criminal evidence into the minor details, the mannerisms, the personalities. His fresh and almost enthusiastic attitude in the classroom captured his students, who paid rapt attention--not because the subject matter was so gruesome they couldn’t look away, as was the case before, but because they were enraptured by this newer, bolder side to their professor. 

Will supposed the rest must have done him good. 

Despite the relief he found in lecturing, he found himself to be more and more irritable. Conversations between him and Hannibal rang in his ears whenever he was annoyed--a rude customer at the gas station, coworkers clearly gossiping as he walked past. The knowledge that he could rid the world of their presence was now at the forefront of his mind at all times. 

He felt awake. Where he used to sleepwalk through the day, ignoring all sorts of slights just to make it home with no troubles, he now found every nerve to be hypersensitive, every sense on a hair trigger. 

And then Jack Crawford was standing in front of his podium. 

“I understand you can empathize with narcissists and sociopaths,” he was saying as Will packed up his things, “and that you’re somewhere on the spectrum yourself.” 

Crawford reached out to fix Will’s glasses, but Will caught his wrist before he could. It took every ounce of strength he had to keep his grip gentle. 

He had made a mistake. He could see Jack’s face change from curious to suspicious. “I’m closer to people with asperger’s and autism than with narcissists and sociopaths. And, generally, nobody on the spectrum appreciates their personal space invaded. I’m sure you understand.” 

“Yes, I’m sure I do.” Jack stood back, smiling but clearly analyzing Will’s threat level. “I was hoping to borrow your knack for empathy.” 

The same letters Hannibal had shown Will were scattered on Jack’s desk, as well as images from their corresponding crime scenes, and a few other photos with no matching letter. Hannibal was sitting in a chair in front of Jack’s desk. When he turned to look at Will, his face was as blank as he’d ever seen it. 

Jack stood behind his desk, imposing and commanding. “I have five letters confessing to five crimes previously attributed to the Chesapeake Ripper. I need to know if it’s the real guy, or just a copycat.” 

“Murderers generally draw fanatics. Are you sure this isn’t just some...misguided soul eager for attention?” Will took a seat next to Hannibal. 

“Sure, we get lots of false confessions,” he put his hands on his desk and lowered his head to be eye level with Will’s. “but none of them have this many unreleased details. And none of them are delivered straight to my desk.” 

Will nodded, avoided his eyes, darted his gaze over the collection of images. 

“This is our current special investigator, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Have you two met?” 

Will looked to Hannibal, who extended his hand and said, “I have not yet had the pleasure.” 

He reached out to shake the doctor’s hand, but the way he had spoken he half-expected to be met with a kiss to his knuckles. 

“He’s been helping us get a better idea of who this killer is. However, I need all the help I can get.”

Will pretended to read over one of the letters, then looked at the photos arranged next to it. “Whoever kills these people feels nothing for them. He doesn’t even see them as human. I don’t think the Chesapeake Ripper would feel the need to confess to anything.” He paused. “The writer of the letters is driven by fear, by guilt. He’s definitely not the same person who painted these pictures.” 

“Then where did he get these details?” Jack pressed, his voice growing louder. “Is he friends with the Ripper? Is he a copycat? Does he work in my _office_?” 

Will cringed. “That part is a little harder to say for sure.” 

“Freddie Lounds of _Tattlecrime_ is notorious for leaking details that the Bureau tries to keep hidden,” Hannibal provided. “Perhaps we start there.” 

“ _Tattlecrime_...tasteless,” Will muttered.

Hannibal turned his gaze to Will, a friendly smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Do you have trouble with taste?”

Will swallowed. “My thoughts are often not tasty.”

“Nor mine.”

The conversation went on, but Will was distracted by how brazenly Hannibal was ogling him in front of the head of the FBI. He had grown accustomed to the way his face relaxed in Will’s presence, eyes warming as their conversations went from professional to banter, but this was the first time it had happened in the presence of another human. He had to admit that pretending not to know Hannibal _did_ give him a little burst of excitement. That said, outright flirting seemed a little bold. 

If Jack was aware of it, he was fantastic at pretending he wasn’t. 

  
  


“Jack’s suspicious,” Will paced around Hannibal’s office that night, fireplace haloing the room in a gentle orange, bathing it in flame. “I don’t think he knows what he’s suspicious of, but he’s suspicious.” 

Hannibal sat cross legged in his chair, watching Will calmly. “You said it yourself, the person who wrote the letters is not the same person who slaughtered those men and women.” 

“But if--” he broke off, sighed, worked his jaw. He was riddled with nerves. The fire might as well be lapping at his heels. “If it’s a dissociative identity disorder, then I don’t necessarily _have_ to be the same person, do I?” 

Hannibal blinked. “You’re beginning to doubt your innocence?” 

“No,” he insisted, then paused. “No,” he said again. “Those letters--I probably just got too worked up about the murders, and between my empathy and my fever I got confused for a few days. That’s all.”

“Losing time, mistaken identity, fate and circumstance. How well will it hold up in a court of law?” 

Will leaned against Hannibal’s desk, huffing his frustration. “What do you suggest?” 

“I will try my best to steer Jack away from your scent, but beyond that I’m not sure what I could do.” 

He felt ragged. Frayed. But very much alive. The flames rising up all around him served only to sharpen his senses, to throw light a little further down a path obscured in shadow. Will dragged his hands over his face, cradling it briefly. “I suppose there’s only one thing to do.” 

Hannibal’s eyes never left Will. Followed him all around his manic pacings. His focus intensified now, waiting. 

“I have to catch the Chesapeake Ripper.” 

The doctor's micro-smile was, as always, unreadable. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DID SOMEONE SAY YEARNINGGGGG

What followed was a long string of tagalongs as Jack and Hannibal investigated murders. Some belonged to the Chesapeake Ripper. Others did not. Either way, Will found he was a natural for the job, picking up on details neither Jack nor Hannibal noticed or put together. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. On one hand, it got him closer to clearing his own name. On the other, he was waist deep in violence at all times, vision swimming in blood and viscera. It crept into his nightmares, perched behind his eyes, waiting to strike at a weak moment. He had frequent weak moments. 

Jack, concerned about Will’s instability, asked Hannibal to give him an evaluation, playing as his unofficial psychiatrist while Will assisted on the cases. Hannibal immediately rubber-stamped him. It felt like another secret. Already they had so many. Concealed truths and private motivations surrounded him, plagued on all sides by influences unseen. In sharp, too-bright moments of clarity Will understood that Hannibal was using their web of lies to hide his own. He also understood that the secrets were tying them together, lending a sense of intimacy to a strange, unnameable relationship. 

And they only grew closer. Long drives to broken towns two or three hours away, late nights in ritzy hotels--Will was used to cheap motor-ins, but Hannibal would not suffer the insult of bedbugs and stained sheets. He grimaced at the Big Mac’s and lopsided subs Will wolfed down on their pit-stops. Hannibal always packed a lunch, a fanciful yellow and brown box full of neatly prepped meals. He offered to pack for Will, who politely declined, afraid of the flutter in his stomach at the thought of being taken care of in such a way. They were able to keep their conversations centered on the investigations during their drives (though they tended to be inappropriately playful for the subject matter), but back in their rooms they spoke long into the night about anything, anything. Hannibal’s travels, Will’s anxieties, college, family, art, science. 

“You know,” Will asked one night, maybe a little too deep into the wine bottle Hannibal provided. “You’ve never asked me how I see you.” 

Hannibal didn’t slur, but the warmth in his expression evidenced enough that he had drank a little more than usual. “Is that strange?”

“It’s usually the first thing people ask when they figure out what I do. Did.” 

They were sprawled out on the king bed, not touching, but the proximity was almost too much anyways. It was a rare moment where Hannibal had undone his vest, leaving only a crisp white shirt, brighter than heaven. 

“I understood early on that most see your gift and want to use it for their own means. I did not want you to feel that I was one of those people.” 

“Like a teacup, you said. But you see me as a, uh,” he stuttered on a laugh. “A mongoose.” 

Hannibal laughed too, flashing his teeth for only a moment. Warmth spread through Will’s chest. He told himself it was the wine. 

“So then, Will.” Hannibal reached out, slow, the way Will reached out to skittish strays. He brushed his fingers through Will’s hair just once before retracting his hand. “How do you see me?” 

Will’s mouth was dry. “I think you like when you’re the smartest person in the room. Most of the time, you are. I think there’s a lot of pain you’re hiding. I think there’s a game you’re playing, but I can’t figure out what the rules are, or how much farther ahead you are than I am.” 

He almost wished he hadn’t said anything. The look on Hannibal’s face, his regard heavy with pride and adoration, made it impossible to breathe. No one had ever looked at him like that before. 

The night thrummed with anticipation. Will felt sick with it. Their conversation continued, flirtatious at times and achingly serious at others. Wine drunk looseness turned to sleepiness, and he knew Hannibal was watching him fall asleep. Neither man made any move to separate. 

But sleep brought nightmares. 

Here he was, tearing the lungs out of a girl while she still breathed. His hands bloodied, the organs, the  _ meat _ , still heaving with life. Here he was cutting a man in two, plopping him down on a dirty bus seat. Rending flesh, thieving body parts, unforgiving in his judgement. Here was God, stalking in the night. Hungry for the sacrifice. Then he was the corpses, mangled and dismembered, so many different ways to die, staring into the eyes of a dark and terrible beast as it ran him through. Over and over. 

Then it stopped. He was aware, at first, of being held tightly. Then the small murmurs of comfort, echoing in a strong chest, soft thunder against his cheek. 

Hannibal. 

He grabbed for the back of Hannibal’s sweater, pressing closer if only for a moment. “What if it’s me,” he rasped, voice rough with sleep and terror. “What if all these bodies we’re finding were put there by me?” 

Hannibal stroked his hair, nuzzled into his curls. “Then we run.” 

This was not the answer he was expecting. 

“We could leave now. Tonight, even. Feed your dogs. Leave a note. Almost polite.” 

Will pulled back to look at him. Hannibal just watched, waited. He accompanied Will to the darkest places imaginable. But always, always, he maintained some facade, hid behind enough wordplay and appearances that his real face would never show. Now, here, in the space between nightmare and waking life the real Hannibal seemed closer than ever. Just beneath the surface, if only Will would reach his hand in. 

“Who are you?” Will asked suddenly. 

He said nothing, only pulled Will back in and held him fast until they fell asleep. 


	7. Chapter 7

To Will’s relief, they didn’t talk about that night. But the anticipation followed them out the hotel and into the daylight. They held each other’s eyes longer, spoke quieter, stood nearer. Sometimes Will watched the mask falter, watched the water ripple and distort so he caught flashes of the depths beneath. He could almost see it--and then it was gone. 

Jack Crawford had them running around looking for organ harvesters, or a medical student, or maybe the Chesapeake Ripper. If it turned out to be the Ripper, that would be fantastic. Will had alibis for at least a few of those murders. However, the more he thought about that body in the hotel room, ribs pulled apart, heart traumatized but intact...that wasn’t how the Ripper ripped. Worse than the blood spattering the tub, or the bewildering menu of organs missing from the latest bodies, was the lingering fear that he was walking into a crime scene of his own making every time he got a call. He wasn’t losing time anymore, as far as he knew, but it didn’t make him feel any better. Nothing really did. Even if he wasn’t a killer, he felt tainted somehow. Like he might as well be. His nightmares were getting worse, too. More elaborate. Clearer details. And in them, he felt  _ good _ . The knife in his hands, the forms bending to his will, their organs his to take, all gave him the kind of thrill he imagined only junkies knew about. In the dreams he never considered what he was doing or why. He just knew there was someone he wanted to remove from the world and he could do it so, so easily. What else was there to think about? There was no guilt until he woke up, ashamed, checking under his fingernails for blood. 

Will told himself they were just dreams, but that exhilaration bled into his waking thoughts. He wondered, often, if it would feel the same in real life. Ached for the kind of feeling that a life of forced monotony had washed away.

So he stayed up all night, drinking on the porch or driving around the city. He did not call Hannibal. Because then he would end up at his door, and then whatever didn’t happen at their hotel would have the opportunity to happen again. Will kept himself busy so he didn’t have to think about anything besides a never-ending list of to-dos. Right after his lecture he started on the investigative work, blearily eyeing the photos of mangled bodies. 

This worked great, until he fell asleep at his desk. 

Hannibal’s hand was warm on his shoulder, gently shaking him awake. It was strong, steadying. It didn’t move away as he sat up, rubbing at his eyes and looking to the doctor. Concern flirted with admiration on his face. “I have a 24-hour cancellation policy,” he said softly. 

Will mumbled his apologies. “I must have fallen asleep.” 

“Not sleeping well?” 

He shook his head, once, more like a twitch than a gesture. “Need to stop sleeping all together. Best way to avoid bad dreams.” 

Hannibal scanned his desk, eyes moving over the collage of blood and gore. His thumb rubbed little circles on Will’s back. “Well, I can see why you have bad dreams.” 

They chatted, picking apart the photographs for pieces of the Ripper. It struck Will once again how easy it was to fall into a rhythm with Hannibal, tossing their ideas back and forth until they became something more concrete. The doctor always had some suggestion that led Will to the truth, or close enough to it that he could reach it on his own. Whatever one lacked the other possessed. Hannibal was graceful, charismatic, intelligent. Will was direct, perceptive, bold. They were both good with their hands and well-versed in death. Together, he thought suddenly, they made some form of perfection. Something untouchable. 

Shoulder to shoulder, they hovered over death. When Jack walked in, commenting on his lack of surprise at finding them together, Will felt his ears burn. 

“We have a lead. Would you care to help us catch the Ripper?” 

The lead took them first to a garage of ambulances, Jack and Beverly Katz exchanging rapidly with the supervisor. Will felt grim, doubtful that they were really on the Ripper’s tail. Disappointment would only further his guilt. He paced behind the group, silent. Hannibal, on the other hand, seemed to regard the event as a field trip. His eyes wandered, whimsical, catching all the details. He used to work in a hospital, Will knew, but he supposed he never interacted with the EMTs. Once, he leaned over and whispered, “this is very educational,” which brought forth a burst of laughter that Will only barely caught in his throat. 

Katz, bright as a gun beneath a streetlight, tracked down a rogue ambulance and led them right to the killer. The man was not, in fact, the Chesapeake Ripper. Will could tell that immediately. He was just a med student, in the middle of a botched transplant. Jack called Dr. Lecter over in his booming voice and asked him to assess the situation. 

Will watched him hop into the back of the car, looking entirely out of place in his shiny blue suit. He had a strange sensation in his side, like he was being cut open. 

“He was removing his kidney,” Hannibal commented. “Badly. I can stop the bleeding.” 

The blue suit still glittered as it was discarded, revealing Hannibal’s broad shoulders and capable arms as he shoved up his shirtsleeves. Will’s brain cataclysmed with connections, the blue of Hannibal’s suit, the blue of murky water, disguises being cast off and histories falling away. Hannibal was once a doctor, had his hands in the bodies of countless people, fingers deft at handling scalpels and cradling organs. How many lives still had Hannibal’s bloody fingerprints on them? Still had him to thank for their continued survival? He looked handsome even under the harsh light. Even with his hands reaching into another man’s side or especially then, face tight with concentration but his whole being steady and sure. For a short time Hannibal had been a healer. What had Will ever been but a killer, a killer disguised as a keeper of the peace? 

He was the body in the bathtub. He felt Hannibal’s hands tucked between his ribs, gripping his heart. From the ambulance, Hannibal glanced over at Will and everything clicked, every image neatly stacked, and they all ran down to two impossible and undeniable facts. 

  1. Will was falling in love with Hannibal.
  2. Hannibal fit the profile for the Chesapeake Ripper.




	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heads up for some violence and canon-typical everything !

The night just kept going, despite Will’s mind being split in two. They arrested the driver, got a real ambulance for the donor, went back to Hannibal’s place so he could prepare dinner. If Hannibal noticed Will’s agonized silence he was polite and ignored it. The same hands that saved a man’s life now expertly crafted the meals for his dinner party. He explained his process as he centrifuged sow’s blood. Will’s eyes stuck on the red of the liquid, the red of the wine in his hands, the red of Hannibal’s undershirt. 

“Are you sure you can’t stay?” 

The hope in his voice nearly broke his heart. “I don’t think I’d be good company.”

“I disagree.” Another meeting of their eyes, inundated with too many things, too much blood. Will drowned in it. He was caught between leaving with his pride or putting Hannibal in handcuffs--the latter option splitting into yet another two trains of thought  _ very  _ different from one another. 

“Why did you stop being a surgeon?” To change the subject, to buy him time, to give Hannibal the chance to say something that would unequivocally prove his innocence. 

“I killed someone.” That wasn’t it. “Or, more accurately, I couldn’t save someone. But it felt like killing them.” 

This could be their last night together, their last few moments before it all went up in flames. He was being torn apart by his choices and the only man he could talk to about it was standing in front of him, pouring off separated plasma into a silver bowl, bloody, bloody. 

He could try being in love. Just for the night. Give it one last try before he destroyed this little vignette forever. Arrest him after dessert. 

“Will?” He started, glancing back up at Hannibal. “Please stay.”

He smiled despite himself. “If your guests are appalled by my table manners, it’s your fault.” 

Hannibal grinned with his teeth. 

The guests were all immaculate. Shiny. Scrubbed and ironed and tanned and rouged. Will felt hopelessly underdressed. He mumbled small talk with Baron So-and-So and tripped his way through pleasantries with Madame Whatserface. They all asked what he did for a living. He didn’t know what to say. Hannibal--chiseled, pressed, handsome in his strange angular way. Hannibal, slick as a spy in his black and white suit, maroon tie hinting at the red glint in his eyes--provided that he taught at Quantico. Will just nodded, assailed with further questions, compliments, propositions. All the time he felt Hannibal’s eyes on him. 

Finally the plates arrived, carried in by a penguin’s march of waitstaff. Conversation made way for lengthy, droning applause. Almost excessive, were it not for the exotic and wonderful dishes set in front of them. 

Hannibal glanced only once in Will’s direction--not at him, just down and to the side, very slightly--to make sure Will was watching him. He was. Then he spoke. “Before we begin you must all be warned.”

Strange, sudden nausea in Will’s stomach. 

“Nothing here,” he said. “is vegetarian.”

The guests only laughed, palming their forks. Understanding shot through Will like steel through sinew. He was calcified. Unable to leave, unable to remain. If Hannibal was the Chesapeake Ripper, then here were his trophies. Laid out neatly on silver platters, arranged in queer ways to dazzle and distract the eye. Art. Performance. 

He would  _ not  _ dryheave at a dinner table with the richest people in the Baltimore area. 

“Will,” Hannibal said, soft enough that only Will, the closest seat at his side, could hear. “Not hungry?” 

He shook himself out of it. “Looks too good to eat.” 

“I assure you, it is even better when you eat it.” 

He had to. He  _ had  _ to. What would Hannibal do if Will interrupted the dinner party to accuse him of cannibalism? Kill him, kill whoever he could, disappear forever. 

Will ate. 

It was terribly easy to do. Will told himself it was just too palatable to be human meat. 

  
  


What he had to do was not made any easier by the night growing darker, the festivities winding down, the guests departing one by one until it was just him and the monster. It was not made any easier by the warm line of Hannibal’s throat exposed as he loosened his tie and unbuttoned a few buttons on his shirt. Shucked up his sleeves. Poured Will a glass of wine and asked, in such a strange and sultry voice, “Dessert?” 

“I thought dessert was the dessert,” he answered. 

Hannibal, ever-patient. “I’m glad you stayed for dinner. I know you felt out of place, but I assure you, not even Ms. Komeda’s diamond brooch could eclipse your radiance.” 

The good doctor, steady, unrufflable, did not spill his wine nor lose his balance as Will slammed him up against the refrigerator and declared war on his mouth. There was only a low chuckle as he set his glass aside, rested his hands over Will’s hips. Something in Will nearly broke at the contact, drunk on the way Hannibal’s breath tasted in his mouth. Now he was yanking at the buttons on Hannibal’s shirt, unthinking, forgetting any semblance of a plan in favor of destroying this man’s stupid perfect suit  _ now _ . 

He only remembered himself when Hannibal bit down on his collarbone. The click of the handcuffs removed the teeth from his neck. No confusion in Hannibal’s eyes. But darkness, darkness billowed just behind them. 

“You fed them to us,” Will whispered, lips still brushing Hannibal’s. “Jack is on his way.” 

His jaw flexed in a way that sent both fear and arousal careening through Will’s stomach. “What a cunning boy you are.” 

He flipped them, Will’s back creaking at the impact with the hard fridge door, his handcuffed wrist yanked up above his head. “Tell me, Will. Would you ever say to me, ‘Stop’? ‘If you loved me, you’d stop’?” 

The metal bit into his skin. He could barely move. For all his precision and delicacy, who knew Hannibal hid this much strength in his arms. “No. No, not in a thousand years.” 

This seemed to satisfy him. He snatched up a meat cleaver, dragged Will over to the cutting board. “Above or below the wrist?” 

“No, no--”

“Please remain still, Will. This is really going to hurt.” 

With one last look at him, Hannibal raised the cleaver high. But the angle, the direction was all wrong. A slight twitch in the doctor's captive arm told Will everything. He lunged forward, knocking Hannibal’s arm out of the way. 

The cleaver bit into his shoulder, breathtaking in its sting. 

“Will!” He had never heard Hannibal’s voice break. Surprise, concern, aggravation all bled into one sound. 

“You--your own hand? Hannibal. You bastard. Don’t you dare.” He hiccuped into his chest. He might have been laughing. Pain, ungodly pain. Hannibal could only say his name, over and over, grab at him anywhere but where the blood was running from. 

With his last burst of strength he said, “Take me with you.” 

“Yes,” Hannibal breathed. “ _ Yes _ .” 

Then he slept. 

  
  


The smart of a needle, the tug of thread drew him from unconsciousness. And Hannibal’s voice, his lovely and rich voice, murmuring little encouragements. Too-bright motel fluorescents surged around him, scratchy bloodstained sheets at his back. 

“With all my intrusion, I could never entirely predict you.” Hannibal closed up the last stitch, placed a kiss at the end of a hateful and brilliant gash in Will’s shoulder. His voice was soft, reverent, like a prayer. “I could feed the caterpillar, whisper into the chrysalis, but what hatches follows its own nature and is beyond me.” 

Will Graham said, “More painkiller please.” 


	9. Epilogue

Some time later, Rinaldo Pazzi found himself trailing vicious valentines, mangled bodies twisted into hearts that grew more elaborate and anatomically correct as time went on. The kills were similar, but not identical; there were two _monstri_ , a mated pair, leaving love notes in blood and viscera wherever they went. And they were taking a grand tour of Europe. Barcelona, Paris, Palermo, Mykonos, Berlin. Everywhere, death. 

And this time, he knew, there would be no catching them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u so much for reading the first fic i've ever finished lmfao


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